Page content

Peter Redstone Builds a Barton Portable

You really can fall in love with the sound
of harpsichord

Text by Ed Crews
Photos by Dave Doody

About sixty years ago, a small English boy fell in love with
harpsichords. The relationship, however, began badly. The affair
started during World War II, when the Germans were bombing Britain,
and his hometown, Southampton, was a target. It was 1940 and Peter
Redstone was four. Evacuated with other children to the safety
of the countryside, he moved in with a wealthy lady in Westbourne.
She owned a harpsichord, the first hed seen. The keyboard
instrument was so novel, so beautiful, so enticing, Redstone burned
to see how it worked. He took it apart.

I got caught doing it, Redstone said. I never
forgot the punishment, or the fascination I felt for that harpsichord.

Dave Doody

Redstone,
right, and harpsichordist Michael Monaco, left, demonstrate the
Bartons portability in the backyard of the St. George Tucker
House.

Dave Doody

Redstones
diminutive Claremont, Virginia, workshop gives him all the space
he needs to plane, drill, and pound fine woods and brass bits
into authentic re-creations of eighteenth-century harpsichords.

During the next six decades, Redstones fascination became a passion
and, finally, a vocation. Today, he builds and sells harpsichords for
a living. The antique pursuit seems to fit perfectly the gentle, congenial
nature of the now sixty-five-year-old craftsman. Six feet tall, thin,
and bald with a white beard, Redstone has a soft voice and mellow English
accent. The rough tones of Southampton were beaten smooth
at the private and no-nonsense Bournemouth School.

He follows his trade in a cozy, bright workshop immediately behind
his home in Claremont, Virginia, a James River community of one country
store and 250 or so souls. The shop has one room with barely enough
space for Redstone to squeeze around a half-finished instrument. The
place smells of glue, varnish, and freshly cut wood chips. Often, as
he works, Redstone takes inspiration from the recordings of music by
such composers of harpsichord pieces as George Frideric Handel, Henry
Purcell, and Domenico Scarlatti.

Here, Redstone has completed his eighty-fifth harpsichord, a commission
from Colonial Williamsburg that required 400 hours of work, a reproduction
of an instrument made by English craftsman Thomas Barton in 1709. Its
acquisition was supported by a grant from the E. K. Sloane Fund of the
Norfolk Foundation, which provides annual grants for the purchase and
maintenance of keyboard instruments by charitable institutions. Established
in 1950, the foundation is a permanent endowment used to help nonprofit
organizations enrich life in Norfolk, Virginia, and surrounding cities,
as well as to provide college scholarships.

Redstones Barton is comparatively small,
light, and mobile and just the thing for special programming needs.
To bring it to just-so perfection, Colonial Williamsburgs
staff harpsichordist, Michael Monaco, played it at every opportunity,
adjusting, tuning, and making minor touch-ups.

I give it two thumbs up, Monaco said in an interview.
For its size, it has no right to sound so good. Mechanically,
it works well. Its tonal quality is exceptional.
Monaco is so struck with Redstones creation that he occasionally
will angle a telephone receiver toward the instrument and play
a tune or two for callers. Monaco is impressed not only with Redstones
creation but also with the sense of history and craft that motivates
and guides him.

Peter really is a link to the past, Monaco said.
He does everything according to the tradition and style
of the 1700s. Nothing about his work is mass produced.

The path in life that led Redstone to build Number 85 was long
and twisting. After taking his punishment for disassembling the
Westbourne harpsichord, he more or less focused on more appropriate
childish interests until his teenage years. His fascination with
the instrument was rejuvenated in school.

I was in a music appreciation class, and I heard a recording
of a piece by Handel played on a harpsichord. It was like getting
hit on the head with a brick, he said. I was finished
from that point on.

Redstone wanted to make harpsichords. Finding a teacher, however,
proved difficult. Harpsichords were popular from the sixteenth
through eighteenth centuries. By the nineteenth century, though,
the piano had overshadowed it. But the harpsichord never really
disappeared and enjoyed a small revival in the twentieth century.
So Redstone knew somebody was making them. He just didnt
know who they were or where they worked.

Unsure of how to get started in the craft, Redstone did a stint in
the Royal Air Force, got electronics training, and eventually took a
job with a fledgling computer company near London. He spent his free
time touring the citys museums, and he discovered Fenton House,
home of an exceptional harpsichord collection. He also found a veteran
harpsichord maker, Michael Thomas, who agreed to teach him the business.
Redstone began dividing his time between twentieth-century electronics
and eighteenth-century musical instrument making. Thomas taught Redstone
a great deal. Redstone absorbed everything he could. In 1962, he began
his first harpsichord, completing it in 1964.

Harpsichord making didnt seem to offer long-term financial security.
So Redstone took a job with RCA and came to the United States in 1967.
He left that work four years later to follow his passion. During the
1980s, Redstone branched out, doing instrument repair and conservation
work. That led to contacts with Colonial Williamsburg, which led to
the Barton commission.

Harpsichord making has brought Redstone satisfaction. Demand for the
instrument is steady but not spectacular. In a good year, he will make
three instruments. Clients tend to be musicians who now find him via
his website, www.ctg.net/redstone.

If harpsichord buyers are in short supply today, that was not the case
in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries, when harpsichord
music, composers, and musicians were immensely popular in Europe. Historians
know little of the instruments early creation or development.
The oldest surviving harpsichord was made in Italy during the 1500s.
Experts do know that the instrument became more complex and refined
during the next two centuries. As it did, craftsmen began to build harpsichords
with distinctive national characteristics in Italy, France, Germany,
and England.

England proved a good home for instrument makers and composers. English
lords and ladies owned and played harpsichords. Elizabeth I had one.
The harpsichords popularity was as bright as its sound except
for an eclipse during the killjoy rule of Oliver Cromwell.

Baroque composers played or wrote for the harpsichord. Handel was a
superb player, as was Johann Christian Bach, son of Johann Sebastian
Bach. One leading London harpsichord artist in the 1600s was court musician
and composer Henry Purcell.

But harpsichords were expensive in Great Britain and its North American
colonies. During the 1700s, Monaco said, most harpsichords in America
were made in Great Britain. Because of the cost, the instrument was
a status symbol. The powerful, the refined, and the wealthy made sure
they had one in their homes.

Records show Virginias Governor John Dunmore owned one made by
Jacob Kirkman, a craftsman so successful, he became rich. Thomas Jefferson
owned one, which his daughter played.

Members of the early American upper class often
mastered the harpsichord but were careful to play without polish.
Style might suggest aspiration to professional musicianship, an
unacceptable notion in a class-conscious age, which tended to
look down on performers of all types, Monaco said.

Late in the eighteenth century the piano began its rise, partly
because of the differences in mechanics. Harpsichords make sound
with jacks that pluck strings. Pianos use hammers that strike
strings. Pianos are more robust and powerful and have a greater
range of musical possibilities.

Bartolomeo Cristofori of Florence, Italy, made the first piano
in the early 1700s. John Isaac Hawkins of Philadelphia made the
first successful low upright piano in 1800. The instrument, however,
did not gain dominance over the harpsichord until roughly the
1830s. The harpsichord slid into obscurity during the nineteenth
century, but found new fans in the twentieth.

The harpsichord is having a renaissance, Monaco said. It
can bring a room to life. The harpsichord can transport people
back to the eighteenth century.

Monaco performs often at the Governors Palace, Geddy House,
and other sites, so it is fairly easy to enjoy the lively, bright
quality of harpsichord music throughout the Historic Area. He
discovers the instrument connects easily with musicians, classical
fans, and people who have never heard or seen a harpsichord.

You really can fall in love with the sound of harpsichord,
Redstone said. You just dont find the same quality
in a piano. I love Chopin, but piano music just doesnt cause
the same reaction in me that a harpsichord does.

Redstones instruments are made using an authentic process and
materials, including animal glue, iron strings, and oak and pine. He
makes two concessions to the modern world. The jacks, which pluck the
strings, are plastic; they originally were quill. The keys are made
from synthetic bone instead of ivory. Redstone wants to save clients
the endless maintenance that the use of such original materials would
require. During the golden age of the harpsichord, he said, repairs
and parts replacement took almost as much time as construction: In
the olden days, you fiddled with them constantly.

Whenever Redstone begins a project, he thinks carefully about what
the product will look and sound like when he is done.

You need several skills to make a harpsichord, he said.
Probably the most important one is having a vision you pursue
about how the instrument will turn out musically as well as mechanically.
You need woodworking skills and a good eye to look at the angles and
to get something done right the first time.

The Colonial Williamsburg project began with drawings that helped Redstone
achieve a concrete vision of the product. When pressed, Redstone said
he could make a harpsichord from scratch without plans. The sketches,
however, allow him to explore details and refine them before the sawing
begins.

Construction starts with Redstone gluing boards, assembling a frame,
and putting veneer on the case. One of the most important steps, midway
through the process, is creation of the soundboard. Its
the heart of the instrument, Redstone said. It is made of
thin pieces of spruce, which amplify the sound of the strings.

Once the soundboard is done, keys are made, the harpsichord is strung,
jacks are installed, and the stand and the lid are completed.

Watching Redstone work, you may at first think harpsichord making is
little more than a sophisticated and specialized form of cabinetry.
And it is true that the level of skill with tools and wood required
here is great. Redstones vocation, however, is more than exquisite
woodworking. It is art as well.

This is an art because there is no formulasimple or complexfor
creating a harpsichord with great sound. The construction process always
is basically the same, the stages following in a natural order, but
the sound of the instrument is the product of thousands of tiny steps,
decisions, and actions along the path to completion. It is impossible
to gauge as the work proceeds the net effect of every saw stroke, spot
of glue and veneer, and tautness of string.

You really never know how a harpsichord will turn out until it
is done, Redstone said. So many variables affect the final
product. For example, just a few shavings off the soundboard can change
the sound of the instrument entirely.

He never is precisely sure when he will finish an instrument. That
moment often takes him by surprise. The end comes without warning. The
magic occurs almost instantly. When it does, a careful construction
of wire, wood, and glue suddenly is a harpsichord.

The end of a project simply comes, he said. It just
sort of happens. When it does, I just start playing.